Mark Doesn't Hate Anyone
by ClimbingtheWalls
Summary: Just because Mark couldn't get him to live doesn't mean he resents the ones that did.


**Title: **Mark Doesn't Hate Anyone

**Author: **Kayla

**Pairing: **Hmm…Roger/April, Roger/Mimi, and Roger/Mark. Don't worry; they're not being whores or anything.

**Rating: **PG

**Spoilers: **Um…if you're reading this I'm assuming you know the story to RENT, so no spoilers really.

**Warnings: **Does very light slash need a warning? I'm giving it one so you can turn around and leave before you get to the end.

**Feedback: **Be kind, that's all I ask. This is my first shot at RENT fic, so I'm nervous.

**Notes: **I don't know where this idea came from. It just popped into my head one day so I wrote it down. I guess I just feel like in a lot of fics, Mark has a certain resentment towards April, and occasionally Mimi, so I just wanted to write a fic that proved otherwise.

* * *

Mark didn't hate April. Everyone assumes that he did, because after all, it had to be her fault Roger got addicted to drugs and then got HIV, right?

Wrong. Mark knew it wasn't April's fault…not completely, anyways. Even if it was, he's still not sure he could hate her. She was the pretty girl, with the flaming red hair, and the cute smile. She was the girl he talked to every morning, because they were always awake hours before Roger, and it was something to pass the time. They became friends, and she could let him ramble on for hours about his camera and his films, and he would apologize for his ramblings, and then she would laugh before telling him that she loved to hear him talk about his work.

April was the only person who had permission to touch Mark's camera. It was mostly because he knew she was the only one who wouldn't break it, but part of it was also because she was nearly as talented as he was behind the lens.

Mark quickly learned that April always wanted to go to film school back when she was a little girl in Memphis. She barely made it out of high school though, and couldn't wait to escape to the city and drop her southern accent. Mark knew how she felt…well, except for the southern accent part, of course.

Mark knew that the others just assumed since April was the one who killed herself and left a note on the bathroom mirror telling Roger, and everyone else in the loft, that they had AIDS, it must have meant that it had been her fault.

But Mark can remember Roger spilling all of his darkest secrets during the withdrawal, and it came out that maybe it was Roger's fault. April didn't want to try the smack, but Roger was so damn happy, and he was giving her those puppy dog eyes that no one could resist, and in her moment of weakness, she took the drug, and she never looked back. She always shared Roger's needle…but she never knew that when she wasn't around, friends, groupies, and complete strangers were shooting up with the same needle, because Roger was too high to deny anyone from using it.

Mark knows that Roger blames himself for what happened to April, but what can Mark do about it, really? He would blame himself too if he knew he was responsible for the death of the innocent girl who just came to the city to escape life in the suburbs of Memphis.

Mark doesn't hate April because he really doesn't think April did anything wrong.

* * *

Mark didn't hate Mimi. He was pretty sure he couldn't hate her if he tried. She was the girl with the big brown eyes, and the bright smile, who came into Roger's life on that cold December night, and got Roger to do what Mark had been trying to do since April's death. She got Roger to live again. She made Roger smile. She made him stop brooding and stop blaming himself for April's death, because regardless of how she got sick, there was no way to know for sure, and Mark kept telling him that, but it didn't seem to sink in until Mimi came around.

Mark heard the others talk when they thought he wasn't listening. He knew they thought he resented Mimi, because Mark had spent all that time taking care of Roger and trying to get him back into the world, and all Mimi did was ask him to light a candle, and the boy was head over heels. Mark spent all that time keeping Roger alive, just for Mimi to walk in the loft and make him live. But to Mark, it didn't matter who got Roger to start living again, just as long as he wasn't dying too fast in that loft, with nothing but his grief and his guitar.

Plus, Mimi seemed to make life better for everyone. After Mimi almost died on the cold December day a year after she asked Roger to light her candle, she began to realize she didn't have much time left. She got clean and she stayed with Roger over the next year, in which everyone was happy, truly happy, for the first time since before Angel died. Mark had no reason to hate the pretty girl with the big eyes and bright smile, because she made everyone happy, and she made them all live for the first time in a long time. They were lucky to have her.

So Mark hopes that Mimi and April are together now, swapping stories about Roger, and they're laughing, and they're _friends. _He hopes they don't hate him, because while April changed Roger's life, and Mimi made him live, Mark was the one keeping him alive the whole time, and Mark is the one he lives for now. Mark hopes that he's made the girls proud by taking such good care of their Roger, and Mark hopes they understand how much he loves their Roger and how much their Roger loves him in return.


End file.
